All That Remains
by Voyagerfictionfan
Summary: Kathryn comes to realise that winter doesn't last forever.
1. Chapter 1

_"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer."_

_\- Albert Camus_

**Chapter One - Winter**

Chakotay stands before me, my mother's porch offering limited shelter from the incoming weather. A small rucksack is slung over his shoulder, one hand tucked into the pocket of his faded jeans. His brow is a shade darker from a recent trip to a sunnier place, and his hair a good inch longer than the regulation Starfleet cut. His long, even stride has imprinted upon the path and from my elevated stance on the porch, I count eleven evenly spaced footprints.

Despite the cold and the fact that he has stood at one or another of my thresholds more times than either of us care to remember, neither of us moves. Sorrow weighs heavily on his features and waves of compassion and concern radiate towards me.

"Kathryn, I heard."

The words traverse the cold, cruel air and in response, my mouth dries and my stomach lurches. His arrival finally and brutally bringing the reality of my mother's death to bear. I have thus far refused to face this eventuality and so as frozen as the ground beneath his boots, we stand.

The North Westerly wind has a bite that burns the apples of my cheeks and stings my eyes. Eventually, a hand on my shoulder steers me through the hallway to the lounge. My knees refuse to comply with his request that I sit, and instead, I remain upright facing the bleak, winter landscape of the garden. A family of tiny sparrows land and instantly scatter, anxiously flitting from place to place in a futile search for food. My eyes come to rest on the large cherry tree in the centre of the lawn.

_A memory flashes. My mother and I sat at her breakfast bar shortly after I had moved in, debating over a pie fresh from the oven. Two forks rest on the edge of the white fluted dish. She was convinced that my Aunt Martha's was the best she'd ever tasted, I'd argued that it wouldn't hold a candle to her recipe._

A fondness for her golden-topped pastry, full to the brim with melt in the mouth cherries of a mellow cerise, is the reason I have recently started to run again. Lapping the fields while my reward cools on the counter.

_It will be so nice, she had said, smoothing the pale blue gingham apron across her stomach and giving a nod to the stove, to bake the next pie together._

Confronted with the unexpected, I tackle the challenge head-on, think harder and faster; raise my game. Unaccustomed to demonstrable weakness, if necessary I rely on sheer bloody-mindedness. A tactic that has thus far proven sound. Standing face to face with the Borg, eye to eye with the Kazon and toe-to-toe with species 8472 is an integral part of who I am.

But I am alone, orphaned before forty-five and grief cuts to the bone. My hands shake, then my arms and shoulders and, as if tuning into some distant frequency, my legs and torso reverberate in accompanying rhythm. My teeth chatter and my head pounds to the dreadful tune and forcibly ending my standoff with consciousness, my knees rebel, buckling beneath me.

Chakotay's arm is instantly around my waist, pulling me tightly against him as sight and hearing steal away. His strength in the face of my own fallibility is the final thing that registers.

An indeterminable amount of time later, propped against one end of the couch, I look distastefully at the proffered glass of water. Sipping the cool liquid, I allow my heart rate to climb and the nausea to abate. Beside me, Chakotay rises and extends his hands. Sliding my palms inside his, much like a newborn lamb, I pull myself to stand. My limbs feel soft, entirely too pliable to support my weight and before I can steady myself, his hands slide to the small of my back, fingers splaying around my waist once again.

"I'm so very sorry," he says quietly.

He has been my rock for so long, yet I find myself pulling away. The painful contradiction of our relationship looms and I drop my gaze to his fingertips still resting on the crest of my hip. Respectfully, he takes a small step back, head dipping, hands falling to his sides. Turning away, I cross the room to the large bay window, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist.

"_Stay_?" I offer finally.

He stops a pace away and doesn't reply until I turn to look at him. Dark, kind eyes never wavering from mine.

_"Always."_

* * *

That evening we don't talk of my mother.

Adeptly turning the tables, I demand the specifics of Chakotay's planned lecture tour and the latest news of our former crew and their families. We sit at each end of her long sofa like bookends, drinking coffee late into the night.

Having transcended the matter of his and Seven's fleeting courtship, our longstanding friendship has endured. Eight weeks after our return to Earth, we were working to reclaim what seven decades of command sought to take. Regular calls, lunch when he is on campus and a trip to the theatre thus far.

The following morning I awake in what was my childhood bedroom to find him in the wicker chair at the foot of the bed. Sporting a pale blue sweater; a pair of reading glasses is perched on his nose. Noting my surprise, he returns an amused glance, tapping the frame with a hint of teasing.

"I think they make me look distinguished."

Leaning back against the pillows, the beginning of a smile rises to my lips before I can check it. I wonder if it is wrong to permit even the slightest flicker of levity into this darkness. If my mother would mind, if he does; if I do.

Knotting the cord of my alabaster robe tightly around my waist, we head down to the kitchen. I decline the offer of breakfast, but Chakotay persists to the point of mild annoyance, and I take a plate of eggs to appease him.

"Tell me about her." He says gently and as I shake my head, a second memory flashes.

_This time, the Academy - my graduation. We, cadets, file in, regulation distance apart, uniforms and faces shining. Keenly searching out the familiar amongst the vast vague sea of humanity. Only I need not comb the rows. My mother sits in the centre of around five hundred people, sporting a coat of bright crimson. She lights up the space like a beacon._

"I miss her already," I begin. "She was so glad to have me home and now- "

My voice breaks, and I tighten my fingers around my mug of coffee, knuckles blanching. Closing my eyes against a tidal wave of sorrow, I will the futility and enormity of her loss to disappear.

When I gaze into the garden once again, the snow has started to fall from the muted, white-grey sky. Millions of tiny flakes tumble in gentle, random streams. Spiralling flurries, twisting and turning as they make their way to earth. Gracing the path, they dust the lawn like a soft coating of icing sugar, engulfing the garden in a sea of benevolent white and gently smothering the branches of the lone, proud cherry tree.

* * *

_A/N: With thanks to OPYKJ for her timely and thoughtful beta._


	2. Chapter 2

_I sowed the seeds of love, __and I sowed them in the spring,_

_I gathered them up in the morning so soon, w__hile the small birds so sweetly sing._

_\- Somerset Folksong_

.

**Chapter Two - Spring**

The cold snap eases. The sky turns from a bland, distant grey into a bright cerulean expanse, peppered with wisps of fluffy clouds as the warming rays of sunshine attempt to fight their way back into my world.

We hold my mother's memorial one Friday afternoon. Family, some close and some not so, her friends, and a smattering of colleagues and acquaintances attend. All in all, over three hundred people pack inside the simple church.

Polished oak floors and pews shine. Thick white beams criss-cross a ceiling studded with vaulted glass and an unadorned wooden cross hangs above the altar. I toy with the idea of wearing uniform but dismiss it when Phoebe gives me a look I know all too well. Instead, I don a dove grey trouser suit and a white shirt but add a bright red poppy to the lapel.

A nod to her extraordinary vibrancy.

The tall, elegant minister has the scattered remnants of dark hair, unusually bright blue eyes and the slightest of stammers. He met my mother at several charity fundraising events and speaks of her with surprising accuracy. Detailing her fierce passion for the arts, her devotion to her husband, her commitment to the vast array of good causes she supported and lastly of her pride in her children whom she considered her legacy. As we rise to sing the final hymn, the words catch in my throat.

At the wake, I shake hundreds of hands and listen dutifully to well-worn stories. I embrace cousins, aunts and uncles I haven't seen in some cases for decades and drink mug after mug of strong, black coffee. My sister and I reminisce about an idyllic childhood spent on the broad Indiana plains, and I promise a gaggle of extended family on my mother's side a visit to County Kerry. Satisfied that I won't renege on a handshake, we wave our farewells to the last of them as the sun sinks slowly.

Chakotay finds me, hips pressed against the railing around the large veranda of my mother's house, staring out into the familiar landscape. Deep amber hues cascade from the sky onto the farmland and outbuildings. The winding roads appearing as if dipped in dark, sticky treacle. He comes to stand alongside, draping my jacket over my shoulders and giving both a gentle squeeze as he does so.

I begin to compel my facial muscles into a reassuring smile, but he stops me with a look. One hand still resting on my shoulder, he reminds me that he will be back in under a week. I nod and after an embrace, listen to his fading footsteps.

I head back inside.

Slipping through the back door, I ease stocking clad feet out of my heels and onto the cool tiles. I drop my jacket and lower myself slowly onto the bottom stair. I tug the earrings from my lobes, unclasp the gold chain from my around neck and slide her ring from my finger. Pulling out a multitude of hairpins, my hair tumbles, liberated, coil-by-coil to touch my shoulders. Teasing out the soft curls and tipping my head from side to side, my fingers dig hard into my scalp for relief.

Finally able to allow the facade to slip, the depth of her loss leaves me exhausted and I crawl upstairs.

* * *

Chakotay returns four days and eight hours later, with, I am to learn afterwards, a large bag and a leave of absence. I don't hear his deliberately heavy footsteps on the stairs and landing, but the repeated knock on the bedroom door and my name in rising increments rouses me from slumber. Irritated, I lift my face from the soft, white pillow as his head and shoulders appear, followed by his entire frame.

Necessarily impassive, he surveys me, before tugging me fully clothed from under the covers.

"I can't do this." I protest trying to ease from his grasp, but he keeps one hand tightly around mine, offering a slight shake of his head.

"So don't," he says handing me a soft maroon sweater. "Let's walk."

Crouching together on the back step, he tucks the bottoms of my trousers into the top of each of my walking boots before lacing them tightly and tugging me to stand once again. Palm at the small of my back, he pushes me gently through the door and out through the garden to the back gate.

We find a path alongside the large field opposite, catching the fledgeling rays of the morning sun, the air filled with the first notes of early birdsong. The landscape undulates gently, stretching as far as the eye can see, a comforting immensity pushing me onwards. The fields are long furrowed, the tips of the first organic crops poking through the barren ridges of chocolate. Clouds drift lazily Eastwards towards a tiny cluster of matchbox-sized farm buildings and after an hour or so, we reach a large tree.

Sliding my knees up to my chest, I rest back against the dark grainy bark.

Chakotay turns to me. "Tell me about her," he prompts gently.

"She was…strong, stubborn and passionate and she didn't suffer fools gladly." I précis, and he tips his head thoughtfully.

"She was also a very proud mother. She loved you deeply, Kathryn."

My hand rises to my chest as sadness builds with each memory. Her words, laced with a just a hint of an honest Irish brogue, I'm told, from my great grandfather. The wry smile I inherited and the creases around her eyes that I now see when I look in the mirror. The feel of her skin the last time I held her hand. I spin her sapphire ring on my finger as the breeze dries the tears running down my cheeks.

Chakotay stretches his legs and squeezes my hand. "Are you ready to head back? You must be hungry."

I nod vaguely at his predictable concern and we set off, retracing our steps in silence. He walks slightly closer, a tiny incursion into my personal space, a foot in the doorway of my grief. I force myself to allow the diminished distance between us, remembering when once I didn't and the cost was great. We traverse the uneven ground, our shadows growing tall, elbows and fingertips occasionally bumping. An earthy mixture of fresh air and spring on our lips.

Approaching her house from the rear, I catch a glimpse of the gnarled branches of the cherry tree, poking over the wall. The first buds of pale cotton candy pink blossom push their way through mint green casings to freedom.

"Let's make a pie," I propose.

Sliding his jacket from his shoulders and bending to remove his boots, Chakotay looks from me to the pristine shaker-style kitchen and back again.

"My mother loved to make pie," I offer by way of explanation, rolling up my sleeves.

I raid her larder, handling each of the large, glass jars of preserved cherries as if it were a gift.

In the coming weeks a quantity of lattice topped, golden brown offerings emerge from her stove. Wedges of cherry pie, topped with whipped cream are shared with neighbours and friends, and several of our former crew are bemused by a home delivery.

Each morning Chakotay and I walk the surrounding countryside, crossing acre upon acre, exploring long-abandoned tracks and hidden woodlands. Carpets of humble snowdrops become my peaceful paradise. Our voices echo among the towering sugar maples and green ash, and we find each other's hands atop distant hills.

We breakfast, lunch and dinner together and one evening standing at the kitchen window, Chakotay's hands find my waist and linger there. I lean back, the slight curve of his abdomen pressing against my lumbar spine.

"It's all that pie," he grumbles, and our combined laughter fills the kitchen.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August."_

_\- Jenny Han_

**Chapter 3 - Summer**

I make good on my promise and take a trip to the South West of Ireland.

It rains every single day.

A gentle veil of precipitation starts after dawn and falls for hours. I explore the beautiful countryside finding mountains that stretch to touch the pale, hazy sky, their patchwork of green and brown skin peppered with purple heather and wild gorse. Crystal clear water laps the shore, a fine mist rising into the warm air as the rain threatens once again. Wading into the freezing shallows, the sensation of the sharp shingle underfoot is rapidly numbed.

My mother's family embraces me with almost startling warmth. Sampling golden butter slathered on doorstep wedges of soda bread, I am grateful for the flask of coffee in my rucksack as I walk on, dragging my fingertips through the lush green grass.

In fine Irish tradition, after dusk, we sit and tell stories. It is a relief to find that it is not my years in the Delta Quadrant they are interested in, but my formative years in Bloomington. They trade in kind and as the Jameson flows, I am treated to an array of winding narratives. My mother's escapades with my aunts and uncles each summer come alive. A sturdy young girl skipping along coastal paths edged with elderflowers, two golden braids bouncing on her shoulders.

My return to Indiana coincides with the persistent heat of a tempestuous summer. Midday temperatures soar as the sun beats down relentlessly. The wide boughs of the cherry tree are laden with fruit of a deep merlot. Eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, a wicker basket sitting snugly in the crook of one arm, I set to work. Ripe, dense pearls drop into my palm with a gentle tug.

I look down to find Chakotay holding the ladder. Barely two metres from the ground, I remind him that I fought the Borg.

"It's good," he says with a considered smile, "to have permission to look after you now."

The Kathryn of old would have arched an eyebrow or given him a glare —although possibly a half-hearted one— to reinforce that under no circumstances do I need looking after. I am after all a Starfleet Admiral, and capable of anything I put my mind to. But instead, I step down, pass him the basket of fruit and plant a kiss on his cheek.

I make less pie.

We mark the six-month anniversary of my mother's death on a hilltop, strands of dry grass tickling our toes. I start to clear her house, retrieving treasures from carefully boxed archives. Hundreds of holographic images of my sister and I, stretching back to our toddling years. In many, my parents sit with us on a knee apiece, broad smiles on their faces.

I talk about my mother.

Of an intellect that built the blocks of my curious mind and drove me to explore the unknown, from the wonders of science to the infinity of space. Of her honesty, which disciplined my character, instilling a work ethic second to none. Of her empowering belief in my sister and I. And lastly of her love. Something that she gave without judgement and encouraged me to do the same.

By the end of the day, my eyes are puffy and my voice hoarse, but my stomach aches from laughter, each recollection brightening the partially illuminated dusk.

* * *

One evening, from the armchair closest to the fireplace, Chakotay eyes me with more than his usual degree of concern.

"Would you like some spiced tea? It might help."

Irritated by the interruption, I raise my gaze from the PADD resting in my palm. Admiral West's insights require my undivided attention.

"Might help with _what_?"

His eyebrow quirks. "To ward off the flu you're coming down with."

The calm, certain pronouncement gives rise to my growing ire, my grip on the PADD tightening.

In a show of apparent frustration, Chakotay exhales, a long, slow sigh escaping his lips. "You have a tell. You've been a short-tempered all day."

Incredulous, I replace the PADD on the low coffee table, swivelling my hips through ninety degrees.

"I've been busy. We've barely spoken," I protest.

"_I know_, Kathryn," he replies. "Perhaps you should have taken the shot. I've heard Kessaarian flu can be unpleasant."

My reply is curt. "I'm not sick. What I need is some peace to finish this report."

Heading upstairs to the blessed solitude of my office, I hear him sigh again.

That night my slumber is restless and I awake disoriented, almost amused by the vague memory of a dream involving the Kassaarian delegation and a large pot of Leola root stew.

My return to the waking world is accompanied by an intense pounding at my temples, worsened by what appears to be an interrogation lamp directly overhead. Shutting my eyes tightly, I instruct the computer to adjust the environmental controls. It fails to recognise my croak. Shivering violently, I pull the bedclothes higher, only to find them already tucked under my chin.

Attempting to access the manual control sends the room spinning violently, a wave of nausea forcing me to return my head to the pillow. A multitude of curse words tumbles through my foggy brain. A tap on the door heralds Chakotay's arrival. I struggle to raise a smile, even as he sets a cup of steaming tea gently on my bedside table. A throw pillow is tucked behind my shoulders and a hypospray pressed into my hand.

Several hours later and feeling sufficiently well enough to face what remains of the day, I find him in the lounge.

"Thank you, for the tea."

He trails me to the couch with a sympathetic smile. "Are you feeling better?"

Sinking into the cushions, a moment of honesty overtakes my stock response. "Yes, although I still ache from head to toe."

Warm hands come to rest on my shoulders, fingertips gently massaging my sore muscles. A sigh of relief slips through my lips and my head tips backwards onto his chest.

"Joe said that you can take a second dose of antibodies to resolve any remaining symptoms."

Snorting softly, I allow my eyes to close. "I doubt that's all he said."

I feel the vibrations of a barely suppressed chuckle. "It wasn't. But I think you've suffered quite enough for one day."

* * *

Over dinner the following day, Chakotay pours me a glass of wine.

"Do you remember the first time I met your mother?"

I recall what I can of the evening. A large, buoyant room, filled with our entire crew, their families, what felt like the entirety of Starfleet and of course, my mother.

Chakotay replaces his half-empty glass. "Well, she offered me a piece of advice—"

"Oh, she was good at that," I interrupt. "Let me guess, she wanted you to cut your hair? Stand straighter? Adjust the collar of that damned dress uniform Starfleet made us wear?"

Paying closer attention to the bottle than is warranted, his smile holds an unexpected hesitancy.

"Actually, she suggested that I give you two months to come to what she termed, your _God-given_ senses and then tell you face-to-face how I feel. With a preference that I include a marriage proposal."

An effort to keep from spraying the merlot in every direction forces me to swallow at the same time as taking an unexpected breath, resulting in a brief but violent coughing fit.

As I dab my streaming eyes and nose, Chakotay is refilling my glass.

I calculate. "So, the day she died, were you already on your way to see me?"

There is a gentle silence, as he folds his napkin into a neat triangle, before slowly raising his gaze to mine.

"I was."

I picture the 'I told you so' my mother would have given me. A flush of colour to her cheekbones, hands resting squarely on her hips, looking from one to the other of us with a maddening smile.

Life is short, I remember. Smoothing the fabric of my damson skirt, I put him out of his misery.

"I'm glad," I say allowing my lips to relax into a smile. "Because I feel the same way."

Pushing his chair back, he rounds the table, winding his arms around my waist and lifting from my feet. Secure in his embrace, I lay my head against his shoulder and his hands wrap around me. As the sun sets slowly, the room is filled with soft amber light.

We become more than best friends.

Finishing the bottle of wine on the sofa, my feet in his lap, our contented evening slips seamlessly into a night entwined within crisp white sheets. Our heads rest on thick, downy pillows. He trails tender kisses along my collarbone, as I run my hands through his hair and whisper his name.


End file.
